The founder of the UK’s most renowned lorry firm has died aged 95.
Eddie Pears Stobart, who launched the haulage company Eddie Stobart in 1946, died on 25 November.
Born in 1929 in Cumbria, he launched the firm to distribute fertiliser in the 1950s, painting his first lorry the now-famous post office red and Brunswick green.
But from 1973, it was his son, Edward, who turned the business into a multimillion-pound haulage empire and quirk of British culture after taking it over.
Keeping with the green and red colouring on the trucks, he transformed it into a 1000-vehicle international logistics firm by the time he sold it in the early 2000s.
Edward, who died in 2011 aged 56, also kept to his father’s tradition of naming the lorries after women, with the first four named after model Twiggy, Dolly Parton, Tammy Wynette and Suzi Quatro.
Drivers were also instructed to hoot their horns when people waved, with many joining in the phenomenon of “Stobart spotting” on Britain’s motorways.
A biography was published called The Eddie Stobart Story, by journalist Hunter Davies, and the firm was celebrated in song. The Wurzels’ “I wanna be an Eddie Stobart driver”, released to celebrate the company’s 25th birthday in 1995.
There was even an Eddie Stobart fan club, which at its peak boasted 25,000 members.
The company, which has been rebranded to Stobart, is now owned by the Culina Group, and the naming of the lorries has ceased.
According to an obituary inThe Times, Mr Stobart insisted he would never have named the company after himself if he knew it was going to become nationally famous.
A devout christian, Mr Stobart met his future wife Nora at a Bible rally in Carlisle before marrying on Boxing Day in 1951.
Following his retirement from his lorry business in the 1970s, the couple lived near Carlisle and were active Church members.
The couple had four children: Anne, John, Edward and William. Mr Stobart is survived by his daughter and son William.